Ask HN: Anyone from Apple here? It's impossible to enroll the dev program • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Anyone from Apple here? It's impossible to enroll the dev program

#31

Post by emidln » Tue, Jul 14, 2020, 5:47 PM UTC

GordonS wrote: post #16

A bit if a tangent, but a company I worked with recently had an issue enrolling in the Enterprise dev program. It's a large company with thousands of employees, so definitely enterprise scale. They heard nothing for months after applying, and weren't able to find any way to chase the application. Eventually Apple got back to them to say the company didn't meet the Enterprise program requirements. The company asked wh…

It took me around 6 months to find out that while we meet the enterprise criteria, our use case wasn't what they envisioned for the enterprise program. As such, they suggested we reapply for a normal dev account and overlook their public instructions that told us to go to their enterprise program.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone from Apple here? It's impossible to enroll the dev program

#32

Post by GordonS » Tue, Jul 14, 2020, 5:51 PM UTC

emidln wrote: post #31

GordonS wrote: post #16

A bit if a tangent, but a company I worked with recently had an issue enrolling in the Enterprise dev program. It's a large company with thousands of employees, so definitely enterprise scale. They heard nothing for months after applying, and weren't able to find any way to chase the application. Eventually Apple got back to them to say the company didn't meet the Enterprise program requirements. The company asked wh…

It took me around 6 months to find out that while we meet the enterprise criteria, our use case wasn't what they envisioned for the enterprise program. As such, they suggested we reapply for a normal dev account and overlook their public instructions that told us to go to their enterprise program.

In this case, the company wanted to develop their own apps and distribute them internally through tools like App Center and InTune, rather than using the public app store. AFAIK, to do that you need an in-house distribution certificate, and AFAIK you can only get that through the Apple Enterprise Developer program.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone from Apple here? It's impossible to enroll the dev program

#33

Post by x13 » Tue, Jul 14, 2020, 6:05 PM UTC

Yep, it's a pain; took me weeks to jump through the hoops to enroll.

I really recommend calling them.

https://developer.apple.com/contact/#!/topic/select

Membership and Account --> Program Purchase and Renewal

Choose the phone option.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone from Apple here? It's impossible to enroll the dev program

#34

Post by rajacombinator » Tue, Jul 14, 2020, 7:17 PM UTC

I had a recent similar problem. Multiple levels of support were clueless. Ended up being due to an iCloud outage that resolved itself.

Horrific developer experience over there at Apple.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone from Apple here? It's impossible to enroll the dev program

#35

Post by niqmk » Tue, Jul 14, 2020, 7:31 PM UTC

Yes, I had similar experience. It's because apple system, the manager told me. They suggested to transfer (wire) the money so they could do manually. I refused, so it took me like 2-3 weeks to wait the system resolved.

After that, I applied again with other company, It's fast enough only took 3 days

Re: Ask HN: Anyone from Apple here? It's impossible to enroll the dev program

#36

Post by closeparen » Tue, Jul 14, 2020, 7:41 PM UTC

GordonS wrote: post #16

A bit if a tangent, but a company I worked with recently had an issue enrolling in the Enterprise dev program. It's a large company with thousands of employees, so definitely enterprise scale. They heard nothing for months after applying, and weren't able to find any way to chase the application. Eventually Apple got back to them to say the company didn't meet the Enterprise program requirements. The company asked wh…

I used to think the Microsoft/Cisco/HP system of certified partner networks was obtuse. Now I see the wisdom. Managing relationships at scale is not the core competency for these companies; it's better that they delegate it to organizations that can. And it's a competitive marketplace. If you don't like your Microsoft partner, there are thousands more to choose from.

Incidentally, when you work at one of these partners, you get access to private tech support phone numbers that are the real-life version of XKCD's Shibboleth [0].

[0] https://xkcd.com/806/

Re: Ask HN: Anyone from Apple here? It's impossible to enroll the dev program

#37

Post by anthonybullard » Tue, Jul 14, 2020, 8:19 PM UTC

I just dealt with a similar issue. It took about a week with multiple back and forths, and then they just said "Try again, it should work". And it did. I bet after WWDC they get a much larger volume of registrations that they really inspect carefully.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone from Apple here? It's impossible to enroll the dev program

#38

Post by hpen » Tue, Jul 14, 2020, 11:05 PM UTC

aalex123 wrote: post #13

hpen wrote: post #3

Have you tried contacting Apple customer service?

yes, I sent them a message, here is what they said: " If you cannot resolve the issue through your financial institution and have received confirmation from Apple that your order could not be completed, you may place a new order using a different payment method. To prevent further issues, please follow these steps: • Use the latest version of Safari and clear cache and cookies before accessing the payment page. • Bef…

Sounds like bad customer service to me

Re: Ask HN: Anyone from Apple here? It's impossible to enroll the dev program

#39

Post by Rhobur » Wed, Jul 15, 2020, 7:40 AM UTC

I've been there and here is what worked for me. I've created a new test account on my machine using an alias for my gmail address. From that account with that email alias I was able to register into the dev program.